17 thoughts on “Orangutans killed by palm oil corporations”

JAKARTA (AFP) – A decision by Indonesian palm oil companies to reject a moratorium on land clearing is threatening to wipe out more than 8,000 orangutans in the next three years, activists said Thursday.

The decision last week to reject the moratorium call by Greenpeace means there is no effective mechanism for protecting thousands of orangutans living outside conservation areas, said Novi Hardianto from the Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP).

COP teams have observed land clearing by two major palm oil companies in orangutan habitats in Central Kalimantan province on Indonesia’s side of Borneo island, Hardianto said.

Subsidiaries of companies IOI Group and Agro Group have been clearing orangutan habitats despite signing up to voluntary standards under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), he said.

However, Hardianto said land clearing by the companies showed the voluntary standards would do little to arrest the rapid decline in the number of orangutans living outside Central Kalimantan’s conservation areas.

“If it keeps going at this rate, we’ll see orangutans in this environment wiped out within three years,” he said.

An executive from Agro Group, Edi Suhardi, denied claims by the conservation group that it witnessed clearing of orangutan habitat forest at Agro’s Kuala Kuayan concession.

“Definitely not, because we just obtained the license to establish palm oil in Kuala Kuayan early this year and we’ve just started our assessments… to identify high conservation value areas in Kuala Kuayan,” Suhardi said.

“This accusation is garrulous and baseless.”

A spokeswoman for the RSPO said the environment group was entitled to raise any accusations against the companies under its grievance procedures.

“If it is true then (the companies) need to make a correction in the field,” Desi Kusmadewi said.

“Before they are kicked out as RSPO members, usually the RSPO gives them a chance to correct themselves,” she said.

COP estimates 20,032 orangutans live in the wild in Central Kalimantan province and that close to 3,000 of them die every year.

High global demand for palm oil, which is used in a wide range of products from biscuits to soap and biodiesel, is driving massive deforestation in Indonesia’s equatorial forests.

Chemical released by trees can help cool planet, scientists
find
Scientists discover cloud-thickening chemicals in trees that
could offer a new weapon in the fight against global warming
Source: Copyright 2008, Guardian
Date: October 31, 2008
Byline: David Adam

Trees could be more important to the Earth’s climate than
previously thought, according to a new study that reveals
forests help to block out the sun.

Scientists in the UK and Germany have discovered that trees
release a chemical that thickens clouds above them, which
reflects more sunlight and so cools the Earth. The research
suggests that chopping down forests could accelerate global
warming more than was thought, and that protecting existing
trees could be one of the best ways to tackle the problem.

Dominick Spracklen, of the Institute for Climate and
Atmospheric Science at Leeds University, said: “We think this
could have quite a significant effect. You can think of
forests as climate air conditioners.”

The scientists looked at chemicals called terpenes that are
released from boreal forests across northern regions such as
Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. The chemicals give pine
forests their distinctive smell, but their function has
puzzled experts for years. Some believe the trees release them
to communicate, while others say they could offer protection
from air pollution.

The team found the terpenes react in the air to form tiny
particles called aerosols. The particles help turn water
vapour in the atmosphere into clouds.

Spracklen said the team’s computer models showed that the pine
particles doubled the thickness of clouds some 1,000m above
the forests, and would reflect an extra 5% sunlight back into
space.

He said: “It might not sound a lot, but that is quite a strong
cooling effect. The climate is such a finely balanced system
that we think this effect is large enough to reduce
temperatures over quite large areas. It gives us another
reason to preserve forests.”

The research, which will be published in a special edition of
the Royal Society journal Philosophical Transactions A, is the
first to quantify the cooling effect of the released
chemicals. The scientists say the findings “must be included
in climate models in order to make realistic predictions”.

Because trees release more terpenes in warmer weather, the
discovery suggests that forests could act as a negative
feedback on climate, to dampen future temperature rise. The
team looked at forests of mainly pine and spruce trees, but
Spracklen said other trees also produce terpenes so the
cooling effect should be found in other regions, including
tropical rainforests.

Ombudsman report on 20 years of corrupt IFC, World Bank Group lending to the Indonesian oil palm industry casts doubt on Bank’s fitness to manage international forest carbon funds that may emerge at Copenhagen climate talks. It is time for the World Bank to end finance of oil palm, sustainable forest management, paper pulp and other industrial rainforest developments known to be the root causes of deforestation, degradation and climate change. The Bank must permanently end financial support for these industrial developments impacting primary rainforests, or it is the wrong entity to administer forest carbon monies.

NOTE: This alert is part of EI’s campaign to protect and restore old forests globally. After sending this protest you are forwarded to several other related crucial and ongoing alerts, which we ask you to please send as well.